Highlights
- The National Institute on Drug Abuse awarded Arizona State University $684,625 to study heat and drug overdose risk.
- Principal investigator Raminta Daniulaityte will lead the project from May 2026 through February 2030.
- The grant, project number 1R01DA061877-01A1, targets what NIH describes as America's hottest metropolitan region.
- Published research has already linked rising temperatures to increased overdose mortality, lending urgency to the new award.
The National Institute on Drug Abuse has awarded Arizona State University's Tempe campus $684,625 to investigate the relationship between environmental heat, health risk, and drug overdoses in what the agency calls America's hottest metropolitan region, according to the NIH ExPORTER grant database.
The award, carrying project number 1R01DA061877-01A1, runs from May 1, 2026 through Feb. 28, 2030. Principal investigator Raminta Daniulaityte will lead the work at ASU's Tempe campus. The grant is structured as an R01 — NIH's standard investigator-initiated research mechanism — at the lower end of the typical R01 range.
The award arrives as peer-reviewed literature has begun documenting the overlap between heat exposure and fatal overdoses. A study indexed on PubMed characterized an intersection between heat-related illness and overdose deaths specifically in Arizona, and a separate analysis highlighted in Yale School of Medicine's news coverage found that rising temperatures across the United States may increase overdose deaths. A paper available through PubMed Central examined heat exposure and drug overdose mortality at the national level.
NIDA, the funding agency, administers the Helping to End Addiction Long-term (HEAL) Initiative, a Congressional program addressing the opioid overdose crisis, and funds research training and career development in addition to investigator-initiated grants such as this one.
Sources
Every factual claim in this article traces to one of the sources below. See how we work for the editorial process.
- reporter.nih.gov retrieved 2026-05-04T05:01:49.251222+00:00
- pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov retrieved 2026-05-04T05:01:49.251222+00:00
- medicine.yale.edu retrieved 2026-05-04T05:01:49.251222+00:00
- pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov retrieved 2026-05-04T05:01:49.251222+00:00
- nida.nih.gov retrieved 2026-05-04T05:01:49.251222+00:00
Authored by presley_anand. Drafted by AI from primary-source material under our beat-specific editorial guides; reviewed by humans before publish under our five-gate process. Sources retrieved at 2026-05-04T05:01:49.251222+00:00. Every claim traces to a source.
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